Only a Prelude
by PokerFace312
Summary: From the moment the crying newborn body of Kaworu Nagisa was recovered from the wreckage of Second Impact, he was a murderer, and the life he was destined to live following that moment would prove to be anything but a happy one.
1. Chapter 1

_**A/N:**__ This is easily the darkest thing I've written/am writing and, as such, a lot of warnings apply. Those will be listed off at the head of each chapter they apply to. For this chapter, the warnings are infanticide, miscarriage, and stillbirth._

* * *

In the year 2000, a total of 3,821,147 births were recorded. For almost the first three quarters of the year, an average of 333,549 babies were born every month, but following the events that took place on September 13th, this number fell quickly before leveling out at 266,881 several months later. On the exact date of Second Impact, 7413 new lives were brought into the world as billions of others departed it. Of these, 3794 were male. Only one was named Nagisa Kaworu.

Unlike the other 7412 who shared his birthday, this boy was not birthed from a human mother. He was an anomaly; one of a kind; a freak, as he would later come to think of himself. He wasn't an only child; far from it. He had fourteen siblings, all varying drastically in appearance and ability, but even among them he was the odd one. Unlike them, he wasn't completely an Angel. He was the result of a contact experiment, his DNA that of both a human donor and his inhuman progenitor. On the day when billions were killed, he was given the life of being part Lilin, just enough that he gained a mind and body akin to a human's despite being the vessel for Adam's soul. From the moment his crying newborn body was recovered from the chaos of Second Impact, he was a murderer.

"What should be done with him?"

"Are we positive he's an Angel?"

"He doesn't look like one."

"He looks human."

"Because the experiment was a success."

"He is Tabris, the Angel of Free Will."

"Everything is going according to the designs laid out in the Dead Sea Scrolls."

"He's just a baby now. We have plenty of time to mold him to benefit our plan."

"We can use him."

"We can control him."

"He is ours."

"He is ours."

"He is ours."

"He is our key to Third Impact."

* * *

13/09/00 || Wednesday || 22:58

Stillborn. Dead at birth. Abortive. Strangled by his own umbilical cord. A medical rarity caused by lazy practice. Nine months of carrying around her baby only to never hold his tiny form in her arms. She felt like she had almost heard his tiny cries as his life was forced out of him. She hadn't even seen him; his body had been taken away so quickly. It was as if she had gone through all that agony of labour and birth only to mother an even more painful emptiness.

A soft knock issued from the door and she looked up from her hands with hollow eyes. She half expected to see her husband despite him being overseas in Japan on a business trip and visiting family, but instead there stood a man in a black tailored suit who looked at her with a serious expression affixed on his face. "Liese Nagisa?" he asked, to which she nodded in confirmation that that was indeed her name. "There's something I would like to discuss with you." He stepped heavily into the room, holding a black attaché case in one hand and closing the door behind him with the other. He came over to her bed and took a seat on the stool beside it. The private room was small, forcing them to be in close proximity to one another. "I realise that this is a sensitive subject, but I am in the understanding that earlier today you came into the hospital in labour but suffered a stillbirth. Is this correct?"

"...Yes, it is," she answered, her brow knitting both in the pain of being reminded of what she already couldn't stop thinking about and confusion as to why this man was asking, or even who this man was for that matter.

"I have something to offer you, however, accepting it will come with a number of complications. Do you accept that?"

She was silent for a moment before giving the slightest of nods.

"What I am offering you is a baby you could take care of and raise in place of your own. It was born several hours ago, just a short while before yours was, and is without parents. If you are willing to possibly accept taking in this baby I will tell you more, however from here on is confidential so I must ask you to sign a statement that you will refrain from so much as mentioning it to anyone. This of course includes your husband."

"Why can't I tell my husband?"

"I'm afraid he's a possible liability. It is important that as few people as possible are aware of this transaction."

"Just what kind of deal is this? What could be so special about a child that I can't even tell my husband that he's not ours?!"

"That's classified, ma'am."

"Who exactly are you even?!"

"That's classified."

Liese was horrified. That such acts of secrecy could be performed centering on a newborn was not only atrocious but also extremely suspicious. But all the same, she was desperate. She had had three miscarriages already and had put so much joy and hope into this pregnancy that its failure was a crushing blow to her, saturated in shame and guilt. Her husband didn't know about the stillbirth. He didn't even know she had gone into labour. He had been on his flight to Japan at the time her water broke and there as of yet hadn't been a change to contact him unless someone else had done so. She had come to the hospital and gone through the birth alone. If she took in this baby, she could pretend it was her own. No one would have to know. Her husband could think she had gone through a successful birth, producing a healthy and happy son that they could love and nurture together. There had been so much strain on their marriage, partially caused by her previous miscarriages, that the news of their baby's death would likely lead to divorce. This child could be the thing that saved their relationship.

"…I accept."

The man in black opened his case on his lap, extracting a sheet of paper and a fountain pen which he handed to her. She began reading, but the words jumbled and flowed together in her mind so much that she could only pick out bits and pieces. Regardless, she signed her name where instructed at the bottom, her signature a flourish of shaky black ink.

She then thrust both objects back towards the man, not meeting his gaze. He began speaking again as he took them from her. "I cannot tell you my name, however I represent an organization known as Seele which works under the United Nations. What Seele does is classified, but I assure you our work is solely for the betterment of mankind. This is the child that you will be taking in." Another slip of paper was handed to her, though so much of this one was blacked out that there was little she could read. "His official title which Seele refers to him by is Tabris, however, you and your husband are free to give him any name you wish to address him with."

"…Kaworu. Kaworu Nagisa. That was what my husband and I planned to name our son, so that'll be fine, won't it?"

"Of course, ma'am. If you take in this boy – Kaworu – you will receive him in a week's time, once we've completed all the necessary medical examinations. Following that, you will be required to bring him to one of our bases of operation every six months where he will stay for a minimum of one week for further examination. The nearest base is just outside of Munich. Do you accept this?"

"Yes."

"And you swear to not tell anyone, including your husband, about Kaworu not being your biological son, as well as you swear not to repeat any of what I've told you here today?"

"Yes."

"Then I will ask you to please read through and sign this as specified." What he handed her this time was a thick packet of paper covered in tiny font, blank spaces appearing once every so often for her to fill her name or initials into. A contract. She read through it in silence, much of the text making little, if any, sense to her, until she got to a segment two thirds in. "What's this part about me relinquishing custody of him on his tenth birthday?"

"It's exactly as it sounds. At age ten, he will be transferred to another base of Seele's in Japan where he will be trained to be used for his intended purpose."

"Which is?"

"Classified."

"Of course it is…"

"If all goes as planned, you will be reunited with him no later than at the beginning of 2016."

She didn't like the idea of having her son taken away from her for five years, even if he wasn't really her son, but once again her thoughts went to her husband, to her and his hope and desire to start a family together.

She signed.

Ten minutes later, she had finished with the contract and she handed it back to the man, breathing out a deep sigh.

"Thank you very much, Mrs. Nagisa. Would you like to see your son?"

She looked up at him, her eyes brightening at the prospect. "Can I?"

"Of course. Come with me." He stood and paced over to the door, resting his hand on the knob as she stumbled out of the bed to follow him. The two exited and began walking down the hall, Liese noticing as they did so that a man in casual clothes stood from a seat to follow them, then another pushed off a wall he was leaning against to do the same. Had they been guarding the room?

Finally, they reached the neonatal room and Liese peered through the glass window, her eyes fanning over the rows of newborns sleeping soundly. Which one was Kaworu?

"Fifth row, second column," the man said, answering her unspoken question.

And there he was, sleeping as soundly as all the rest in his little blue bed. A small tuft of hair was present on the crown of his head, so light it seemed almost white. He stirred slightly under her gaze, wiggling his hips and curling in his fingers as he opened his eyes slightly. Red.

She thought to herself in that moment that he was the most beautiful thing that she had ever seen. This opinion of hers would hold strong until five years later.

* * *

Unbeknownst to Liese, she was not a mother chosen by chance to raise the seventeenth Angel purely on the coincidence of a stillbirth. She had been chosen by Seele because she and her husband fit the qualifications, including both being highly intelligent and being strongly subject to persuasion. Specialized drugs had been slipped into her breakfast for that morning by operatives, leading to a medically induced labour several weeks earlier than what had been predicted by her doctor. In truth, there had no stillbirth. The obstetrician had been bribed by Seele to kill the baby, the death then covered up and made to seem like an accident. Had Liese not accepted so easily to take in Tabris, she would have been bribed. If that too had failed, Seele had positioned personnel around her husband, ready to threaten him in the event that a bit more coercion was needed. Liese never had any chance to decline. Everything had been predetermined.


	2. Chapter 2

_**Chapter warnings: **__detailed description of gore._

* * *

13/09/00 || Wednesday || 22:58

"And a slight pinch… very good." Fluorescent lights glared down into the small sterile room, hurting the young boy's eyes slightly. His sleeve was rolled up to his shoulder and beside him a doctor gently extracted the needle of a syringe from his right arm.

Five years had passed since the occurrence of Second Impact and life was just beginning to return to what it had previously been. Political unrest and poverty were still more prominent than they had been before the turn of the century, but things were slowly improving. Society was adjusting.

The Nagisa family had been lucky. They lived in Freudenstadt, far enough inland that they hadn't been directly affected by the higher sea levels, and Seele sent them money every few months to make sure their little test subject was being brought up in a financially secure environment. Needing an excuse for the money, Liese had told her husband Yuuto that a distant relative of hers had passed away and left it to her.

Just as he had every year, Kaworu celebrated his birthday in a medical facility, spending much of that time floating in a thick sickly vat of orange liquid. This time, however, he had also spent a fair amount of time on an operating table, his chest now aching from the I shaped suture wounds framing the position of his heart. Liese had driven him the almost three and half hours to Seele's Munich base, unsuspecting of what her son was about to be subjected to. As far as she was aware, he had simply been receiving standard vaccinations and tests for a child his age, willingly allowing herself to stay ignorant to the truth of the affair. For as much pain as he went through during his biannual "check-ups", during which he more closely resembled a pin cushion than a child, Kaworu never complained. It was what he was used to.

Another week of this had come to an end and now the silver haired boy sat on an exam table receiving his final check over before he was freed.

"Alright," the doctor said, "I'd just like to check your heart rate once more and then you're all done."

Kaworu lifted up his shirt as he had at least a dozen times over the last few days, so used to the feel of the metal against his skin that he barely flinched away from its coldness. What did make him flinch was the pain of it against the new lacerations. Despite the doctor's gentle words, her actions when treating him were often coarse and unwelcome. Many of the people he encountered there were the same, kind on the surface but ready to inflict injury as soon as the opportunity presented itself. There had only been one person who had ever treated him with any semblance of sincere kindness: a woman with short brown hair and a kind smile who had visited him a few sparse but memorable times. Sadly, he hadn't seen her this time.

"Is my mom here yet?"

"She is indeed," smiled the doctor answering the question lightly, and a wave of relief and excitement flooded over him at the thought of his impending release. "Your heart's beating a little quickly. I suppose it wasn't the smartest idea to check it when you're so excited about leaving." There was a slight edge of venom to her words. She leaned back again and scrawled a quick note onto her papers. "Regardless, we're finished here, so get changed and we'll go find your mother, shall we?" Kaworu nodded quickly and hopped down from the table over to a closed plastic bin where the outfit he had been wearing the day he arrived at the facility was kept. He didn't wear his own clothes while there. In their place, he wore standard issue scrubs sized to fit him, if he wore anything at all. During many of his tests he would be completely naked.

With this done, the two exited the room and walked down the long hallway side by side. Kaworu was familiar enough with the route that he barely had to pay attention to where he was going. Instead, his eyes focused on the slight irregularities: the lab coat clad staff darting past, whispering of an accident during some experiment; quiet voices wafting from a slightly ajar door, through which he caught a brief glimpse of red hair; a single light flickering above, an individual flaw amongst the surrounding perfection. But there was one constant, unchanging feature that never fully escaped his notice: beneath the smell of sterilization there was an almost unnoticeable scent of something akin to iron. This was a smell he had grown used to here, emanating also from the orange liquid. As well, he had smelled it strongly on his own body upon waking up in a cot after his operation a few days before. It made his muscles tense involuntarily, every instance when he could detect more than a subtle hint of it making him want to flee.

"Here we go, sweetheart," the doctor said once they'd reached the tiny waiting room, calling back his attention. At her words, a woman seated in a cushioned metal chair a little ways away looked up from a book in her hands. Usually when her eyes met with her son's after one of these weeks a soft smile would spread on her lips, but today they only settled into a hard line. Kaworu also noticed that her dark hair, despite being in its usual low bun, was slightly disheveled. Even so, the child rushed forward and hugged her legs, an excited cry of "Mommy!" issuing from his lips.

"Did everything go alright?" she asked, first looking at Kaworu but then quickly shifting her gaze to the other woman.

"No irregularities. Everything seems to be progressing as it would for any child." There was something about the way she said this, the subtle emphasis she put on the word "child", that gave Kaworu a small sense of unease. It was like she was saying that he wasn't a child himself, but what else could he be? He looked and acted and grew like a child, after all.

He knew that there was something different about him. He knew that most children didn't spend entire weeks in medical facilities; not unless there was something wrong with them. He didn't know what it was that was wrong with him – no one had ever told him and he'd quickly learned that asking bore no fruit – but he got the feeling that it was something very bad. In some ways, he was happy to stay in the dark.

"Well, I'm glad to hear it. Come on now, Kaworu, let's go." There was an edge of unease in Liese's voice. She leaned down to grab the boy's small wrist, her grip a little too hard, and started half dragging him towards the door.

"Ma'am," came the doctor's voice just as the two stepped through the exit. Liese seemed to freeze, her tight grasp on her son's wrist constricting even more. "Remember to keep what we told you confidential from everyone but your husband."

A stillness filled the dull room for a moment as Kaworu looked up at his mother in confusion. Finally, two almost indiscernible words slipped from her lips: "I know."

The cold mechanical doors slid to a heavy close.

* * *

13/09/05 || Tuesday || 20:18

"He's not our son." The words were spoken in a hushed tone, yet they seemed to reverberate hollowly around the figures seated on the edge of a large bed. Kaworu had gone to sleep a little while earlier and the two parents had retreated to their own bedroom, Liese telling Yuuto that she had something important she needed to discuss with him.

Yuuto was silent for a moment, staring at his wife, before he spoke. "What do you mean he's not? Is he another man's then?" Confusion and anger were already bubbling in him, though the anger was quickly extinguished by the woman's next words.

"I didn't say he not _yours_. I said he's not either of ours."

"I don't understand. Are you saying they mixed up our baby with someone else's at the hospital?"

"No. I wish it was that simple. Our baby… Our baby is dead."

"What?"

"He was stillborn. I'm sorry, so so sorry, that I never told you before. I wanted to, but I- I was worried you would leave me if I did."

He raised a hand to her cheek, tilting her head up to look into her slightly watering eyes. "Oh sweetheart, I would never leave you. Especially not over something like that that you had no control over." Liese smiled at him, but even so she couldn't help but feel a surety that he was lying. "All the same, we still have Kaworu," Yuuto continued. "If our baby died, then where did he come from?"

"It's… complicated. They told me before that I wasn't allowed to tell you, but today I was told that I was supposed to all of a sudden."

"They?"

"Well… You know how Kaworu has to go to that special facility for medical tests and examinations every six months? That place is one of their bases. They call themselves Seele." Her words began to quicken. "I was told they work under the UN, but they wouldn't tell me anymore. All they told me was that I was to take Kaworu in as our own and keep the truth about him a secret from you and everyone else. But… Oh god, I didn't even know the truth about him myself." She half sobbed out these last syllables, her head falling to rest in the palm of her hand.

"What do you mean?"

"Today, when I went to pick Kaworu up, they had me go into a side room for a bit so they could talk to me. They told me… I don't even know if I believe what they told me… I should never have agreed to take him. I never even dreamed any of what I was told today."

An oppressive silence surrounded them as Yuuto stewed over everything his wife was telling him, but the most prominent thought in his mind was what where exactly their "son" had come from. Thoughts of experimental breeding and terrorists slid in and out of his cognition, clouding his brain in a heavy fog. "Whose son is he?"

"…No one's."

"So what? Was he a test tube baby or something? I suppose that would explain all the health complications and such."

"It's not that simple! He-!" she broke off, taking a slow, deep breath to steady herself. "He's not human." Yuuto's head whipped around to look at her, his expression telling her to elaborate. "They called him an Angel. They said… that they were telling us because we have to keep a more watchful eye on him from now on. We have to make sure he doesn't do anything conspicuous, although they didn't elaborate on what exactly he might do that would be such."

"And we're just supposed to believe this? To go along with this ridiculousness?"

"…They said he could be dangerous. I'm sorry. I am so incredibly sorry."

Silence once again surrounded the two for an agonizingly long moment before Yuuto broke it.

"…What are we supposed to do now then?"

"Keep an eye on him like they told us, I suppose. I don't know what else there is to do. I feel like I don't know anything anymore."

* * *

14/09/05 || Wednesday || 08:46

"Where'd you get that from?" Yuuto asked, trying to keep his voice light. It hadn't even been a full day since Liese had told him the truth about Kaworu and he was already finding things that unsettled him about his false son. He had been dressing the boy for the day and had removed his tiny pajama shirt when a bright red scar in the shape of a large I had glared at him from the center of his chest. It was already considerably healed, looking like it had been there for at least a week or two if not longer, yet Yuuto had no recollection of having seen it before.

Kaworu looked down at himself in confusion only for understanding to dawn on his face as his own eyes came to rest on what his father was looking at nervously. "Oh, it's from the doctors."

"They did something like that to you? When?"

"A few days ago. They put me to sleep on some weird smelling bed thing and when I woke up that was on my chest. But look!" he stuck out his chest proudly, "It's already going away! It was all puffy and gross before!"

"Yeah… That's great, bud." Yuuto looked away nervously, reaching for the shirt he'd taken out a few minutes before for Kaworu to change into. He didn't want to see something like that. What had those so called "doctors" been doing that would leave such a prominent scar? It looked like it was over the boy's heart. They hadn't been doing some sort of surgery on his heart, had they? Why? But what disturbed him most was how much that scar had already healed. If it was really only a few days old as Kaworu said, it shouldn't have been anywhere close to being like that. There was light scabbing on it and it glowed a bright red against Kaworu's pale skin, perpendicular lines assumedly from stitches running along it, but it didn't look painful at all.

Yuuto called back memories from when he was a child and his father had had to get bypass surgery. From what he remembered, his father hadn't even been home for several days, and once he was he had refrained from leaving the house for a decent while after that due to the amount of pain he was in. It could be assumed that Kaworu would heal faster since he was young, but for it to not even appear to bother him after only a couple days was unheard of, especially when he wasn't even on any pain medications as far as Yuuto knew.

What exactly was this boy?

* * *

In the weeks that followed, Yuuto continued to keep an eye on the injury. Three weeks after that morning when he initially noticed it, it had faded to an almost unnoticeable white scar, only visible against the whiteness of Kaworu's skin when light shone on the scar tissue, refracting with a slight shine. Two months later, even that was gone.

* * *

14/09/05 || Wednesday || 08:46

High pitched cries of excitement echoed off the tiles surrounding the pool, bright sunlight streaming down through the glass ceiling high above as the Nagisa family gleefully emerged from the changing room together. Excitement bubbling in him, Kaworu attempted to dart forward towards the glistening water only to be pulled back lightly by Liese. Instead, she led him over to the kids' pool, though he longingly looked back at the diving boards as she did so.

"Now, now, Kaworu, calm down. I want you to stay where your feet can touch the ground, alright?" she said kindly as she brought him to the edge. The water shimmered, refracting sunlight as the small boy who had yet to learn how to swim stared down at it in amazement. He nodded lightly and she let go of his hand, "Good boy. Mommy and daddy will be over in the hot tub if you need anything, so be good now." With that, she paced over to the small oval of hot water a dozen or so feet away where her husband was already lounging peacefully.

Kaworu shuffled over to the adjacent side of the pool from where his mother left him, this one sloping down gradually rather than being a sudden drop, and slowly waded his way in. The water felt cool, but not uncomfortably so, and he soon found himself smiling, going deeper and deeper until everything but his head was submerged. A soft giggle bubbled from his lips as he jumped slightly, enjoying the way the water caught him and landed him softly after each bounce. Not paying attention as he did this, he soon found himself floating deeper, allowing his head to dip under the surface periodically. It was at this point, though, that he found himself deep enough that he could no longer touch the bottom. Panic overcame him for a moment and he whipped his head around, trying to locate where the hot tub was but finding that he couldn't see much of anything over the walls of the pool. He began pumping with his legs and arms, trying to keep himself afloat and, to his surprise and amazement, it worked. Soon, he found himself back in the shallower area, the pads of his feet lightly coming to rest once again on the smooth tile flooring.

He blinked in confusion, turning to look at the other children around him. There were quite a few accompanied by their parents, most of these around his age or younger, and several by themselves or playfully splashing others, but most were around the shallows where he now stood. The few who were deeper were all either adorning life jackets or noticeably older than Kaworu. He had heard many a tale about people drowning and yet here he was, somehow knowing how to swim marginally well despite never being taught to do so.

Experimentally, he leaned himself forward until his shoulders were under the water, then raised his feet off the ground and preformed a frog-like kicking motion like he had seen others do in the past, spreading his arms in a wide berth with his palms facing outwards. And he moved forward. Again he repeated the action and again he moved. His mouth and nose ended up submerged between strokes, but each time he pumped he found himself able to take a quick intake of breath which he used to his advantage. He did this back and forth across the small pool several times and, as he did so, he found each lap becoming more and more natural.

And someone screamed.

A loud crash of water accompanied it and Kaworu whipped his head around, trying to divulge the source of the noises. He paddled over to the side of the pool and lifted himself out just in time to see a figure plummet from high above, hollering excitedly, only to make a crashing sound twinning the earlier one as they hit the water of the larger main pool. Wide eyed, Kaworu watched the dark shadow of the figure waver beneath the surface for a few moments before they shot back to the top, slapping the water with their hands as a wide grin lit their face. His gaze then drifted upwards until it landed on a thick slab of stone several meters up, extending from a thick pillar of the same material. Barely giving it a thought, he wandered towards it and found that on the opposite side, facing the wall, was a ladder leading up and up to the very top.

A diving platform.

Another person, an older girl in a bright yellow bikini, auburn hair pulled back in a tight ponytail, brushed passed the gawking child and grabbed onto the bars running along either side of the ladder, ascending quickly only to fall back towards Earth a few moments later with a shrill squeal of excitement and slap into the water below.

Watching jovially, a smile spread across Kaworu's cheeks and he darted his eyes upwards for a moment before he shot out a hand and grabbed one of the bars. A short time later, he had shimmied his way to the top and crept to the edge, looking down from what seemed like impossibly, amazingly high.

This was going to be so much fun!

He backed up to where the ladder peaked out from the edge of the platform and set himself into a starting stance, and then he took off, short legs carrying him quickly towards the edge.

"KAWORU?!"

His feet faltered at the sound of his mother's panicked voice, but it was too late; he had too much momentum to stop. He half-stumbled to the edge, leaning precariously over it, and then he fell.

Except he didn't.

When he opened his eyes that he hadn't realize he had closed, he found himself stationary, hanging high above the crystal liquid below. He took a sharp intake of breath, confusion mixed with alarm washing into him, and then he really did find himself plummeting downwards. The water hit him like a ton of bricks and the wind was knocked out of him. And then he was sinking, all memory of how he had managed to swim before in the kiddy pool having vanished from his mind as panic set in.

The next thing he knew, strong hands were clasping around him and he was being dragged to the surface, his limbs soon hitting cold tile as he was thrown less than gently onto the poolside. Familiar slender arms wrapped around him and pulled him into a tight embrace and, when he opened his eyes, he saw his father yanking himself out of the water.

But when his shell shocked gaze met Yuuto's, it wasn't the fear of almost losing a son that he saw there. It was the fear of facing a monster.

* * *

06/07/06 || Thursday || 22:05

The next incident came just over half a year later.

It was just a few minutes passed ten at night when Yuuto slouched through his front door, mind hazy with exhaustion after a late day at work and a painfully long commute which had been almost doubled in length thanks to a train that couldn't seem to make up its mind about which way it was going as it cut across the road. He dropped his briefcase heavily on the couch before wading his way to the kitchen and pouring himself a small amount of port, knocking it back in one gulp before shaking his head slightly at the taste. _Ah, I want a smoke… _The thought weeded its way into his mind only to be expelled just as quickly. He hadn't smoked in years, Liese having made him quit as a condition to getting engaged. Every so often the desire would once again permeate his mind, but he had managed to remain faithful to his promise even so. Leaning arduously against the counter, he placed his dirtied glass into the sink and pushed away, beginning to make his way down the narrow hall towards the bedroom that he and his wife shared.

He found himself pausing as he passed his "son's" room, however. Something had caught his eye. Blinking, he backed up a couple steps and cast his eyes to the ground, taking a moment in his languid state to decipher exactly what he was looking at. A pale light shone from under the door, flickering slightly with movement.

A deep sigh found its way to his lips. Kaworu must have gotten his hands on a flashlight somehow and was up playing passed his bedtime. Yuuto's hand came to rest on the doorknob and, turning it, he pushed the door open. "Come on Kaworu, flashlight away. You should have been asleep hours-" His words came to abrupt halt, however, as he took in the sight of the boy.

There was no flashlight present. Rather, the white light Yuuto had caught a glimpse of from the other side of the door seemed to resonate from Kaworu himself, who was crouched on the floor with a red toy truck gripped playfully in his hands.

The two simply stared at one another, each frozen with both surprise and fear. After a moment, the older of the two managed to partially compose himself again and he stepped forward to hesitantly scoop up his "son", the light immediately dying away as he did so. He then dropped Kaworu into his bed, perhaps a little too roughly. He leaned over the boy, trying to make himself appear menacing but not overly so while simultaneously trying to keep his own fear from appearing on his features, and said, "Kaworu, what were you doing just now?"

"Playing with my truck…" The small child's voice came out as a squeak, laced with both guilt and fear.

Yuuto had to smother the small sparks of frustration that were forming in him, reasoning that his "son" simply hadn't realized the true meaning of his question. He licked his lips in annoyance. "Yes, you were. And do you know what you're supposed to be doing right now?"

Kaworu nodded his head slowly, his chin tucked into his chest. "Sleeping."

"Exactly. And you're not doing that, are you?"

He shook his head.

"Right. So when I come back to check on you in a little while, you'll be asleep, right?"

A nod.

"And I won't catch you doing this again, right?"

Another nod.

"There's a good boy." Yuuto hesitated before asking one last thing, clarifying the meaning of his first question. "Now before I go, Kaworu, I want you to tell me something, okay? That light you were using: where did it come from? How were you doing it?"

The boy looked up at him with those big, inhumanly red eyes and said confusedly, "I was bored and I wanted to play, but I didn't want to turn on my big light since I was afraid you or mommy would see it and get mad at me. So I started thinking that I wished I had some smaller light I could use and I just started glowing!" His expression grew excited. "Isn't that cool? I didn't know people could do that!"

A shiver passed through Yuuto and he took a nervous gulp that seemed to get stuck in his throat. "I don't want you doing that again, okay?" Kaworu's face fell. The man stood, ignoring the inquires about why as he crossed to the door. "Go to sleep now, Kaworu. I'll see you in the morning."

And with that, he shut the door tightly behind him, finally resuming his trek to his own bedroom.

* * *

Yuuto stirred in his sleep, his eyes scrunching before peeling open ever so slightly. He rolled over onto his back only to grimace at a wet sensation he felt there. Was he sweating? The room wasn't any hotter than usual, but maybe he had had a nightmare or something and just couldn't remember it? Annoyed, he brought a hand to his back to rub it, hoping to spread the condensation enough that it would evaporate more quickly, but as he touched the liquid, he found it somewhat sticky and slicker than sweat was.

What?

Bringing his hand back into view, he looked at his palm in confusion, its colour several shades darker than it should have been and glistening slightly in the dim light that filtered through the window.

It wasn't sweat.

Blood?

A hyperawareness overcame him as he realized just how much blood there must be for it to soak his back to such an extent. He experimentally flexed his muscles and moved his limbs a fraction of an inch but felt no unusual pains. It wasn't his blood.

Liese.

An uncomfortable shiver wracking through him, he forced himself to turn his head to look at his wife.

His breath hitched, catching in his throat.

Liese's eyes were wide beside him, her mouth hanging open in a frozen expression of terror, looking straight up. But what grasped Yuuto's attention was her neck, sliced open from the front deep enough that her head seemed to barely be attached to her body. Blood still flowed slowly from the gaping artery and her trachea was clearly visible. He couldn't look away from her, eyes locked on her in the same way that one finds it difficult to look away from a car crash, and as he gazed at her, he couldn't help but notice that even the bones of her neck were visible, dyed a sickly light pink, the whites of them standing out harshly against the surrounding red. It was her eyes that terrified him the most, their cold gaze so fixed upwards as a few wide tear streaks still glistened around her temples.

He didn't want to follow her dead stare, didn't want to see if whatever had done this to her still resided in the path her eyes held, but his head began turning against his volition, his eyes casting to the shadows dancing across the ceiling.

There was something there. He hadn't noticed it before, his eyes having been too bleary to focus properly, but now that fear had grasped him and sent adrenaline coursing through his veins, he could tell that there was undeniably something clinging to the ceiling. It was too dark to see properly, however, the weak light from the outside streetlamps only illuminating it enough to see a vague, lumpy outline. Eyes not leaving it, Yuuto reached a shaking hand out to his side and tugged the chain of the bedside lamp, bathing the room in a warm golden glow.

A pair of wide red eyes met Yuuto's, their corneas black and wide with something akin to excitement. The creature's head was topped with almost translucent white hair, matted in places with a sickening red, and adorning its face was a hellish, sharp-toothed grin dripping with blood. Dark black wings, a bizarre cross between those of a hawk and a bat, extended from its small back and black fingernails glinted from the ends of humanoid fingers, digging into the now cracked plaster. Its head was turned a hundred and eighty degrees, staring straight down at Yuuto with its neck twisted grotesquely. But what horrified the man more than anything was that he recognized the thing.

Kaworu.

Yuuto barely had time to blink before the monstrosity he had thought of as his son up until just under a year ago lunged at him.

* * *

_**A/N: **__Okay, first of all, someone please draw me a picture of adorable five year old Kaworu swimming because that is a visual I need in my life. Second, up until yesterday, this was actually two chapters. I decided to merge them since I thought it read better that way which meanssss rather than already having next week's chapter mostly written, I only have about two scenes of it done. So, already, my one chapter a week policy may be out the window. We'll see._


	3. Chapter 3

_**Chapter Warnings: **Alcohol use, strangulation._

* * *

07/07/06 || Friday || 03:24

Yuuto shot up in bed, eyes wide and the ghost of a scream dying on his lips. A dream. It had just been a horrible dream. He looked to his left and saw Liese still sleeping soundly, thankful that she had always been a deep sleeper.

From his nightstand, the numbers 3:24 glowed bright red. It was still too early to get up, but even so, Yuuto had no intentions of going back to sleep. Instead, he slouched out of bed and crept towards the kitchen, passing in front of Kaworu's door as he had earlier that night under much different pretenses. He shivered at the memory of the creature from his nightmare. He knew he was just being silly, yet his hand found its way to the knob and he slowly pushed open the door.

And Kaworu was there, light sighs issuing from him as he slept, as peaceful as an angel.

Another shudder passed through Yuuto and he hurriedly shut the door.

* * *

21/08/06 || Monday || 07:43

Boisterous cries of children filled the air the school ground, finally repopulated after having been empty over the summer holiday. Small bodies skirted around one another and their parents, happily reuniting with friends and classmates, but, at the edge of the throng, Kaworu stood alone, his mother and father having drifted to several meters away to speak with other parents. Unlike the other children, chattering away animatedly, he simply stared down at his shoes, too white in their newly-bought state.

"What's wrong with your hair?" Kaworu half jumped back in surprise at a high pitched voice. Looking up, his gaze met that of the voice's owner: a little girl with honey-coloured hair who was maybe an inch or two taller than him, staring at him curiously from barely a foot away. "Oh, your eyes are weird too. What's up with that?"

Kaworu looked at her perplexedly for a moment before scanning his gaze over the surrounding crowd. He had never thought of his appearance as anything out the ordinary. Usually the people he met were his parents' friends who often, upon meeting him, referred to him as pretty. The only others were the doctors. Regarding those around himself now, however, he noticed for the first time that the only ones with hair similar to him were people who looked to be older than even his parents, and their hair all looked either ashier or more white than his own silver hair. He couldn't see as many eyes, but he idly wondered if anyone else around him had red eyes akin to his own.

He felt something stroke his hair and, surprised, he whipped his head back around to find the girl with a hand raised, wonder in her eyes. "Soft." The muted word slipped from her lips and, a moment later, a wide smile spread across her face. "I'm Katharina!" she said, her voice bubbly again, "But most people call me Katie! What's your name?"

He just blinked at her for a few seconds before answering shyly, "Kaworu…"

"And you're name's weird!" There was no poison in her tone. She looked at him as though she'd just found a special new pet.

"Katie!" a woman's voice called and the addressed the girl turned to look in the direction it came from.

"That's my mom. Come on!" Not giving him the chance to protest, the girl grabbed Kaworu by the hand and began tugging him behind her with surprising strength. As he fumbled through the crowd, he noticed his own parents a little ways ahead talking to a woman with short hair the same colour as Katie's. "Look mom!" the girl called as they neared the small group of adults, "I made a new friend!" She raised their still-clasped hands as she said this and Kaworu looked at her with a hint of confusion visible on his features. Friend? All that had happened was she had called him weird and they had exchanged names. Was that was friendship was?

"Oh, Kaworu!" Liese chirruped when she noticed that it was him the girl had been referring to. "Effi, this is our son we were telling you about."

As the other woman's gaze came to rest on him, Kaworu noticed her smile falter for a split second before she caught it. This was something he had noticed on quite a few people in the past, although he wasn't quite sure what it meant. "It's very nice to meet you, Kaworu. The two of you are in the same class; isn't that exciting?!"

As if on cue, a droning bell sounded, announcing that it was time for students to find their classrooms. Kaworu followed his parents, holding onto the back of his father's shirt, and he glanced over at Katie. She flashed him a wide grin, and he noticed one of her front teeth was missing.

* * *

04/09/06 || Monday || 09:53

"Hey Lie? Can I talk to you for a bit?"

Liese paused in tying her shoe, looking up towards where her husband's voice called her from the living room. "Can it wait? I was just about to go get groceries."

"I'd prefer now." There was a short pause before he added, "It's about Kaworu."

Attention piqued, she shook off her half-tied sneaker and made her way to the living room where Yuuto was sitting stiffly on the couch, the TV muted a few meters in front of him. He had the day off work and, with their son at school, he had been taking the opportunity to relax. Liese sat on the edge of the adjacent loveseat and waited for him to speak.

He cleared his throat. "I assume you remember a little under a year ago, after Kaworu got back from his check-up, that you told me we were supposed to keep an eye out for anything odd about him."

"I do." Liese's voice was low and drawn, nervous about where this was going. "I take it you noticed a thing or two."

"Yeah," he said hoarsely, possibly more uneasy than his wife. "I thought this would be a good time to tell you considering he's going to that facility again next week." Liese nodded slowly. "Well, um… The first thing I noticed was his healing. I don't know if _you _noticed – although you probably did seeing as how you spend more time with him than I do – but, when he came back from the time before last, he had incision scars on his chest," Yuuto drew the shape on his own torso, "that looked like what you would have after heart surgery. They looked quite healed though. More so than they should have been. And they disappeared very quickly.

"And then there was the time we all went to the pool together and Kaworu jumped off the diving platform when we weren't paying attention. You remember that, right? I swear to god, it looked like he was floating for a few seconds-"

"Floating?" Liese looked at him in surprise. All she could remember from that moment was a tremendous sense of panic at the thought that her son might hurt himself or even drown. But floating? Had something like that really happened? "Are you sure you aren't remembering wrong or-"

"I don't think I am," Yuuto cut her off, a heavy weight to his voice. "…The last thing is that, just about a month and a half ago, I got home late and I noticed Kaworu stull had his light on, so I went into his room to tell him to go to sleep and…"

"…And?"

"And the light was coming from _him_. He was _glowing_."

The two were silent for a minute as Liese stared at her husband with confusion and disbelief visible on her face. "…Had you been drinking?"

"What does that have to do with-"

"Had you been drinking?" she repeated more firmly.

Yuuto sighed. "I had a bit of port right after I got home. Nowhere near enough to be drunk though, which is what I assume you're getting at."

"But… isn't it possible that maybe the alcohol was making you see thi-"

"I said I wasn't drunk, dammit!" Yuuto slammed his hand down on the end table beside him as he said this and Liese jumped at his sudden outburst. "…Sorry. I didn't mean to snap like that."

"No, I'm sorry too," Liese swallowed. "I shouldn't have been doubting you like that."

Again, a silence passed between the two, feeling awkward in the wake of Yuuto's anger. It was him who broke it this time. "So… has there been anything else that you've noticed?"

"I noticed the scars," she affirmed with a small nod. "I've also been keeping an eye on any scraped knees or nicks he gets and it's like you said. They shouldn't been healing so fast but they just… disappear. It's like I can almost see them going away, like one of those sped up videos of plants growing."

"Anything else?"

"…Electronics."

"Huh?"

"I don't think it's ever happened around you, which is probably why you've never noticed, but sometimes I'll be watching TV or listening to the radio or some such thing and something will come on that he doesn't like and it – the music or the screen or whatever – will start to get staticky. Maybe it's just a coincidence, but considering the timing… There was one time I could swear the lights even flickered for a second."

"…Next week, when you go to take Kaworu to the facility, you should tell them all of this. It's probably something they'll want to know about. And who knows? Maybe they'll tell you more about what he is."

"I don't like you putting it like that." Liese's voice was more level than it had been throughout the rest of the conversation. "It makes me feel like you don't think of him as your son."

"Well he's not, is he? That's exactly what you told me a year ago."

* * *

13/09/06 || Wednesday || 11:58

Lo and behold, a week later Liese found herself making the long drive to Munich for the twenty-third time, the route more than familiar to her by now. Kaworu chattered idly at her from the back seat the whole while, telling her about his classes and the girl who, in a mere month, had already become his best friend.

Arriving at the large angular building that always reminded her of a prison, her son was quickly shuffled away by a nurse. Just as the two were about to disappear around a corner, however, she called out, "Um! Could I talk to you about something?" Both looked back at her in confusion, at which she added, "The… nurse please. Not you, Kaworu."

The man in a white lab coat muttered a quick "wait here please" to the boy before half-jogging back to Liese. "Can I ask what you want to talk about?"

"Last year I was told to watch for anything…" she flicked her eyes to Kaworu for a second, lowering her voice, "_odd_ about him…"

The nurse was quiet for a second, seeming to be turning the sentence over in his mind. "I'll ask one of the doctors to come talk to you," was all he said before turning back around and leading a curious little boy away.

Left to stare at the empty space her son had been inhabiting up until a moment ago, Liese wandered slowly to the nearby wall and leaned her weight against it. Her heart was racing in both fear and anticipation of how the doctor might respond to what she was going to tell them, causing her to feel like she had stood up too quickly. A few minutes passed before an older man with salt and pepper hair stepped around the same corner, addressing her by name. "I understand you have something to tell me, Mrs. Nagisa. I'm Dr. Daniel Ehrlichmann. I'm not sure if you remember me; I was the one who spoke to you last year." He reached out to shake her hand and she took it. Liese remembered him, alright. She also remembered checking his name online shortly after and learning that it was fake. "Would you mind coming with me? I'd prefer to discuss this in my office." He turned on his heel and began walking back in the direction he'd come, not even seeming to check if she was following. Of course, she was.

* * *

13/09/06 || Wednesday || 16:24

The moment Liese arrived home that afternoon, Yuuto was asking her if she had learned anything new from the doctors. She just shook her head.

After she had told Dr. Ehrlichmann what she had wanted to and gotten no information from him in return, she had been lead back out of the building by him.

As they had been passing a procedure room, she had heard what had sounded like a child screaming.

She had been practically pushed out the front doors only seconds later.

* * *

19/09/06 || Tuesday || 03:21

Once again, Yuuto found himself jerking awake in bed, sweaty and shaking in reprise to another nightmare. After the one he had had the night he had found Kaworu glowing, he seemed to have the terrible dreams with growing frequency, now at the point where it was rare to go a night without one. Each was similar, evolving through slight variations of the same horrific scene.

He got up, quietly as to not wake Liese, and found himself walking to the kitchen, pulling out an almost empty bottle of port that had been new barely a week ago and drinking a full glass before pouring himself another.

Tomorrow he would buy himself something stronger.

* * *

21/09/06 || Thursday || 09:27

"Hey look! It's the freak!" Kaworu jumped, partially at the loud voice but more so because of the feet that suddenly appeared before him, crushing the sorry excuse of a sand castle he had been trying to build in the damp sand.

School had seemed to fit the little Angel quite well. He had taken easily to classroom learning, quickly rising towards the top of his class, and he had proven himself more than capable at sports during gym class. But it was a much different story once he got onto the playground.

There were bullies. In the short time since the semester had begun, kids had been quick to weed out the weirdos, and, with his strikingly different appearance, Kaworu had been right at the top of their list.

Trying to ignore them despite already feeling tears pricking his eyes, Kaworu pressed his hands back into the sand and started building a similar structure to his now destroyed one, shifting his body so this one was about a foot away. He barely had time to start this, however, before it was kicked down, the bully's foot hitting his hand painfully in the process. He just stared at his demolished work, clutching his hand to his chest as he refused to look up at the taller boy hovering above him.

"Are you even _allowed_ to be playing? You're sick; you should just stay away from everyone else! No one wants to be near you, anyway!" The boy raised the same foot he had used to destroy Kaworu's sand castle and kicked his shoulder, causing him to wince in pain as a few tears escaped his eyes.

"Stop!" he cried feebly, but this only seemed to amuse the other child who grinned, kicking again, harder. Losing his balance, Kaworu fell onto his side and instinctively covered his head with his arms.

He was scared. He was crying. He wanted to just go home to where he was safe.

He braced himself, expecting another blow to hit him, when there came a sudden familiar cry of "Hey jerk!" His eyes flew up just in time to see a blond girl take a running leap at the boy, one foot stretched out in front of her. She hit the bully straight in the chest, bowling him over. "What do you think you're doing?!" she yelled at his slumped form.

The bully quickly scrambled to his feet and Kaworu noticed with some sense of mirth that he had tears in his eyes. "I'm telling!" was all he shrieked before running off in the direction opposite from Katie.

"Yeah, you better run!" she called after him, glaring at his retreating form for a few seconds longer before she turned to crouch beside Kaworu. "You okay?"

"Yeah," he said, picking himself back up and brushing some sand off his clothes, "Fine."

"Hmm." She dragged out the syllable, doubting him, only to then dart out her hand to grab the boy's. "Come with me!"

That always seemed to be how it was with the two of them, Katie getting Kaworu out of an uncomfortable situation and pulling him along to somewhere happier. This time she dragged him back into the school, ignoring the protests of a teacher stationed by the door, and into their classroom to where she kept her backpack, bringing it over to him so they could sit on the carpeted floor together. From it, she extracted a small plastic container and shoved it towards him.

"I wanted to give it to you last week, but you weren't here," she explained, and he frowned down at the suspicious container. "Go on, open it."

He tugged the lid off with a low pop and found a smile spreading on his cheeks as he saw what it was. A cupcake, vanilla with white icing and the words "Happy Birthday!" written in shaky red letters, slightly smudged from being in the container. He pulled it out, not even caring about the icing getting on his fingers, and took a bite out of it. It was a bit dry, assumedly from age given what Katie had said, but even so, he loved it. It was completely gone in less than a minute.

"Did you like it?" Katie beamed and Kaworu simply nodded quickly, swallowing down that last of the sweet baked good.

"It was delicious, thank you!"

Katie giggled and wrapped him into a hug which he eagerly accepted. When they pulled away though, her face grew serious. "Where were you for the last week anyway?"

Kaworu gulped again, this time purely out of nerves. He had only arrived home last night, the memories of the cold doctor's offices and operation rooms still fresh in his mind. "I was at the doctors," was all he said.

"For a whole week?"

He nodded.

"Why? Were you sick?"

"I don't know."

"But why would you go to see a doctor for a whole week if you're not sick?"

"I said I don't know!" he snapped suddenly, surprising both of them. "I'm sorry." He drew his legs into himself and wrapped his arms around them, withdrawing himself. A moment of silence passed before he explained, "I have to go there every six months. No one ever tells me why."

"That's silly! And the doctors just look at you and check your heart beat and junk for a whole week?"

"Sometimes. Sometimes they do other things."

"Like what?"

He didn't answer her.

* * *

23/10/06 || Tuesday || 03:27

Mint green forms moved around him as he tried to squirm out of restraints holding him down on cold metal. They talked amongst themselves, using words he didn't understand. He saw a flash of silver and realized that one was holding something akin to a knife. He screamed, tried to call for help, but none came. The green figure bore down one him, telling him to relax, that it would be over soon. The blade was pressed to his bare skin.

Pain pain pain pain pain pain pain pain pain pain pain.

Screams tore from his throat as he saw red spray up above him.

His stomach was on fire.

He felt like he was going to die.

He wanted to die.

And then he opened his eyes and the pain disappeared. He found himself surrounded by the faintly illuminated darkness of his room, the blankets that had previously been covering him now kicked onto the floor. The images he had just scene still played on the back of his eyelids. His stomach ached dully and he gingerly lifted his pajama shirt, revealing the already half-healed surgery scars there. He wished that what he had just seen had merely been a dream. But no, they were memories, the ghosts of what he had experienced just days ago before he'd finally been let out of the facility.

He shivered.

Nightmares like this weren't are a rarity for him, far from it. He had been surprised when Katie had told him about a happy dream she had had a few weeks earlier, unaware that such things even existed. He hadn't told his parents about them since he was around three, at which point he had realized that they were annoyed with how often he had them. So instead he suffered in silence. On nights like tonight, when the dreams were especially bad, he would simply go sit outside his parents' room for a little while until he calmed down. And so, he slipped out of his small bed and treaded out into the hall.

Just as he neared the door at the end, however, it opened and his father came out. "Daddy?" he called out in a quiet voice, hope budding in him that he might actually get some comfort from these dreams for the first time in what seemed like forever.

When Yuuto's eyes fell on him, though, they looked sunken and terrified, widening as they took in the sight of his son. He seemed to almost stumble back into the room for a second, but then his gaze hardened in resolve, locking on Kaworu.

He lunged.

Kaworu barely had time to gasp before crushing hands were tightening around his throat.

He couldn't breathe.

What was going on?

Why was his dad attacking him?

Why wasn't he comforting him?

Why wasn't he protecting him?

Why why why why?

All he had wanted was to be loved.

Why was this happening?

The world started to grow black around the edges and Kaworu faintly registered that saliva was dripping from the corner of his mouth.

He couldn't breathe he couldn't breathe he couldn't breathe

Stop stop stop stop stop stop

_Let me go!_

He felt something seeming to hum around him, expanding from his body like an energy.

And then the hands disappeared.

Kaworu's body fell, hitting the ground hard. He coughed, grasping at his neck which he could already feel bruising, and looked up to see his father backed up against the door with his eyes flicking back and forth between his hands and the boy, frightened.

Yuuto reached a hand behind him, feeling for the doorknob, then slipped through the frame and into the room adjacent from where he had just tried to kill his son.

The door closed and there was the quiet click of the lock being turned.

And Kaworu was alone again.


	4. Chapter 4

**_Chapter Warnings:_**_ Alcohol use, domestic abuse, verbal abuse_

* * *

11/01/07 || Thursday || 12:41

Something was different. The sunlight filtering in through the open windows reflected differently; the air moved in altered currents; previously settled dust had been disturbed and set afloat once again. Dark lacquered wood now stood heavy and proud against the wall which had once been home only to a few sparse picture frames. Dropping his book bag at the door and shuffling off his shoes, Kaworu paced his way to it with measured steps, as if afraid the structure would otherwise sense his presence.

Liese had told him to enter before her while she gathered some bags she had had in her car, saying there was a surprise waiting for him. Stepping up to it now, Kaworu ran a slow hand across the wood, taking in its smooth texture, then lowered it to the jutting lip on the front. He curled his fingers under it and pulled with gentle force, lifted the lid off the keys, and hesitantly pressed one down, sending its individual song reverberating deeply around the room.

"I see you found the piano," Liese gleaned and Kaworu turned to see her smiling broadly in the doorway, arms filled with heavy looking bags of both groceries and library books. He quickly ran over to her, tugging on her shirt's hem as he inquired about where the instrument had come from. "It was your grandfather's. It's been in storage since he passed away, but I thought it was a shame to not at least have it out."

A few hazy memories drifted to Kaworu's mind at the mention of the old man. Smells of cigars and cheap whiskey and the light plinking of an instrument. Had that sound come from this? Amazement filled his eyes and he stepped back towards it, this time placing all his fingers on it, wanting to replicate the sound he vaguely recalled. The noise that came from it, however, was anything but pleasant and he found himself grabbing back his hands in shock.

Liese just laughed and Kaworu looked up at her, pained. "You're not going to be an expert pianist the moment you touch it, sweetheart," she said lightly. "But you know, I happen to know a thing or two about playing. Do you want me to teach you?"

The boy nodded his head so quickly it almost looked like it would fall off.

* * *

09/03/07 || Friday || 12:18

"Go away!" The girl's shrill cry echoed off surrounding trees, bouncing back from the depression of the ravine running a few meters away. At this time of year eight years ago, the forest would have been blanketed in a thick dusting of snow and ice, but that had stopped being the case when Kaworu was born. "I said go!" Again the girl yelled at the boy in front of her. This time, though, her voice broke slightly.

"Katie…!"

"No! I don't want to be your friend anymore! I don't want to get bullied anymore! I don't like it!" Her voice shattered on the last sentence. She had stood up for Kaworu. She had defended him. She had fought on his behalf. But, when school was over and she was walking home alone, they would find her. When she was alone, she wasn't so strong. She wanted to protect her best friend. But she wanted to protect herself more.

Red eyes looked at her from slightly lower than her own, swimming with confusion and hurt. "What do you mean? Isn't it me who's getting bullied?"

"You stupid-head! What do you think happens to me when you're not around? You and you're stupid weird doctor thing!" Katie had borne witness to his week-long disappearances thrice now, more than a full turn of the seasonless year having passed since they had met on that first day of school. They had remained friends for that time, but the girl had never been without her grievances about it. "Why can't you just stick up for _yourself_ once in a while?! You shouldn't look so weird if you're not going to stop people from picking on you for it!" It was a silly thing for her to say, and she knew it. She knew he couldn't change the way he looked any more than she could change herself. She knew he hadn't chosen to look as he did.

She didn't care.

"Katie, I'm sorry!"

"Go away!" she repeated, but this time it was said as a scream. Turning on her heel, she started sprinting away, quickly taking the half dozen steps it took to cross the narrow plank used as a foot bridge across the waterway.

She could hear his slightly lighter footsteps start after her, hitting the wood only to be followed by a small yelp.

Her feet faltered.

When she looked behind her, Kaworu had disappeared.

"…Kaworu?"

"...elp…!" From where she stood, fingers were just visible gripping tightly to the edge of the plank, the nails of one finger digging into a notch.

"Kaworu!" She was back on the plank in a flash, kneeling down and grabbing his wrists. The ravine wasn't deep, but it was enough that he would likely break a bone or two at the very least if he fell. With this thought solidifying itself in her mind, she tightened her grip on him, muttering out a strained "hold on." She tugged on him but, to both of their horror, the movement resulted in Kaworu losing his own grip.

Kaworu fell, dragging Katie along with him.

She squeezed her eyes shut and waited for the pain of the impact, but it never came. A pair of smaller arms wrapped around her and she opened one eye to peak at her surroundings only for the other to fly open in surprise a moment later. They were falling, yes, but not quickly. "Descending" would be the better word. When her feet finally touched ground a few seconds later, it was damp stone and soil that they landed on rather than the torrent of the water that had been below them before. They had fallen at an angle. Confusion washed through Katie's mind and she looked at Kaworu. He looked tired and scared, his eyes wide and breathing heavy as a few beads of sweat shone on his forehead. "What just happened?" was all she could ask.

Kaworu's breath caught. "I can't tell you."

"What? Why? You obviously know something! That shouldn't have been possible!"

His head jerked back and forth quickly. "I'm not supposed to tell people," he squeaked. "It's bad."

"Huh? But you just saved us, didn't you? How is that bad?"

Kaworu just looked at her, his expression a jumble of emotions that she couldn't discern.

* * *

12/05/07 || Saturday || 19:42

He was yelling again.

He was mad again.

He was being mean again.

Why couldn't he just stop?

There was a sharp, painful smell to his breath.

That hadn't been there before this had started.

It had only been like this for a year.

Maybe it would stop soon.

Maybe the real him would come back.

The nice him.

This couldn't really be him.

He wasn't like this.

He wasn't a monster.

_"Because aren't I the monster? Isn't that what he's always calling me?"_

Why couldn't this just stop already?

* * *

31/08/07 || Friday || 17:52

"So Katie told me something interesting the other day," Effi suddenly said to Liese as the two women sat side by side on a bench watching their children race after each other in the playground.

"Oh?"

"She said that Kaworu was a superhero," she laughed. "Apparently he told her that he could fly and make himself glow and some other stuff like that. Isn't that silly?"

"Y-yeah. Kids just come up with the most imaginative things, don't they?"

A few minutes later, Liese stood and called Kaworu's name, trying to keep her voice level as she told him they were going home.

* * *

31/08/07 || Friday || 18:33

Yuuto huffed out a sigh as he pulled his house key out of his pocket. He hated going home these days. Try as he had to get more hours at the office, they often insisted that he was working too hard and that he should leave in time to make it home before his family had gone to sleep. _What family?_ he would think to himself. _My fake son and lying wife who got me into this whole mess?_

Pushing open the door, he was met by the disjointed plunking of piano keys and he immediately felt as though he was about to have a headache. Why the hell had Liese gotten that damned thing? It seemed Kaworu was always playing away at it these days, although "playing" was perhaps too kind a word. He crossed the living room where the piano was situated as fast as he could, aiming for the kitchen where he could have a much needed drink.

Opening the door, however, he found Liese standing there with phone in hand, talking into the receiver with a worried look on her face. He paced passed her slowly, keeping his gaze locked on her as he took the vodka bottle from the fridge with slow movements. "Yes, that's what she told me," she was saying. "A few hours ago. She didn't say. Effi Kalb. Her daughter, Katie Kalb. Seven years old; she's one of Kaworu's classmates. No, she's a single mother."

"Liese, who are you talking to?" Yuuto suddenly cut in.

"Not now," was all she responded with before returning to the phone. "Sorry, I was talking to my husband."

Frustrated, Yuuto strode back into the living room and picked up the other receiver that was there, pressing it to his ear after selecting the "talk" button. A low male voice sounded from it, followed by Liese's.

"And this is the first time she's told you anything like this?"

"Yes."

"She's never shown any signs before of knowing about the subject?"

"No."

What? Did the mother of that girl Kaworu was always hanging around know something? How?

"Could you repeat once more what exactly it was that the Ms. Kalb said to you?"

"She said that Katie had told her Kaworu had said he could fly and glow."

"And you suspect this is referring to the incidents you mentioned to us a year ago?"

"Yes."

_Kaworu. _He should have known. Of course the little shit was to blame. In a flash, he had dropped the receiver and had the hand that had been holding it bunched in the back of his "son's" shirt, the boy's hands coming down hard on the keys loudly as a small cry of surprise rose from him. "What the hell have I told you about talking to people about that kind of stuff?!" he bellowed into Kaworu's face, anger already fully risen in him. "You are not normal! You will never be normal!" From the kitchen, he could hear Liese call his name in shock, but he ignored it.

"But- But Katie said it was cool! She said there wasn't anything wrong with it!" Kaworu sobbed out shakily, tears already falling from his eyes. What a little wimp. If he was so weak, he should just die already.

"There's nothing 'cool' about it! You are a _freak_! You're a _monster_! Do you know what people will think of me if they find out what you are?!"

"_Yuuto_!" A hand grabbed his arm and he threw it out into the impeding figure, knocking them into the nearby wall.

He froze.

Not because he realized that it was Liese he had just knocked away. Because he realized the phone was still connected and the person on the other end, the person from that "Seele" place, had heard everything.

* * *

01/09/07 || Saturday || 01:37

Effi couldn't sleep. Not that that came as much of a surprise; she had suffered from insomnia since she was young. Tonight, she had laid in bed for several hours, staring into the darkness as she wished for sleep to take her. But it never did.

Letting out a deep sigh, she rose from her bed and began the short trek to the apartment's single bathroom where she kept her sleeping pills. They rarely seemed to do much, but it was worth a try at any rate.

A muffled noise came from her daughter's room.

"Katie?"

No answer came.

She pushed open the girl's bedroom door without much hesitation. It wasn't uncommon for Katie to fall out of bed in her sleep. That was probably what had caused the sound. Indeed, Effi's eyes immediately came to rest on her daughter's body lying on the floor, but it took only a millisecond more for her to notice the figure standing over it.

There wasn't time enough for Effi to scream before arms were holding her from behind and a damp cloth was being held over her mouth and nose.

And then, at long last, sleep overcame her.

* * *

03/09/07 || Monday || 08:04

"Alright, everyone's here, so shall we begin for the day?" the teacher chirped cheerfully from the front of the classroom, only to pause as a pale hand shot up from a seat near the back. "Yes, Kaworu?"

"Miss Fassbinder, Katie's not here."

"She and her mother moved away over the weekend. Did she not tell you?"

Kaworu was silent and the teacher continued from where she had been before his question. No, Katie hadn't told him. He hadn't had any idea.

She would have told him, wouldn't she? Aside from their fight a month ago, they had always been quite close. If she had known she was moving, she surely would have come to him distraught about it. Or, that's what he had assumed.

His fingers clenched in his lap. Katie was gone. The person who protected him was gone. The person who made him feel like he wasn't alone, like he wasn't so weird, was gone.

He had a bad feeling about it. Like it was his fault. Like it was his fault for telling her.

* * *

01/09/07 || Saturday || 10:23

"The subjects have been moved to their holding chambers, sir."

"Excellent. And both are alive, I assume?"

"Yes, sir. They're both in excellent condition. When shall we proceed with testing?"

"You can start right away with the older one. I'd like to ask the child a few questions before we begin with her."

"Very well."

"Oh, and before you go, I'd like you to tell the detainment sector to station some personnel around the Seventeenth's father. I get the feeling he'll make for a superb test subject in the near future."


	5. Chapter 5

_**Chapter Warnings:** Attempted murder, bullying, child abuse, cutting, domestic abuse, homophobic slurs, physical assault, self-harm, and possibly ptsd. _

* * *

16/01/08 || Tuesday || 12:11

The punch struck his cheek hard, nearly causing him to lose his footing until he caught himself on the brick wall. "Not so tough without your _girlfriend_, are you?" a disgusting voice said from just in front of him. Kaworu raised his gaze, red eyes meeting the muddy brown ones belonging to the same boy who had crushed his sand castle all those months ago. A boy by the name of Niklas Amsel. Unlike during that previous incident, however, Niklas wasn't alone this time. Flanking him on either side were two more boys from their class who snickered at their leader's utterance of the word "girlfriend", ready to restrain Kaworu by the arms in the event that he tried to struggle or flee. He didn't.

This sort of treatment had become commonplace in the few short months since Katie disappeared, and it wasn't limited to the school grounds where Niklas and his goons had quickly mapped out every spot where the teachers neglected to keep a supervising eye. At present, the pale boy was hidden in the crook of space behind the janitor's shed, chilly even on the warmest of days as the sun failed to reach the crumbling stone and rusting metal. He had been yanked into the nook the moment he had stepped out of the school doors.

There had been no struggle. By now, he had learned that it would do no good. It would only lead to tighter fingers and harder punches. If he told a teacher, the torture would stop for maybe a week, but the next time would leave him feeling like he'd been hit by a cement truck rather than just a pick-up truck.

So he just stood there, kept his lips shut, and waited for it to be over.

* * *

07/04/08 || Saturday || 18:27

His father was more careful about where he landed his punches. The face was a free for all for the bullies, but if _Yuuto_ were to leave a mark there it could lead to trouble. Instead, he made Kaworu's torso his target, often breaking ribs which mended themselves quickly only to be broken all over again a few days later.

At the beginning, Liese had tried to stop him. She had begged and pleaded and threatened, but it had all been to little avail and had more often than not simply lead to her receiving treatment similar to her son's. It hadn't taken many incidences until she had started simply going into another room and pretending she didn't hear anything.

There wasn't any one thing that set Yuuto off. Sometimes it was some dirt on his son's clothes, sometimes it was a slightly less than perfect mark on a test, and sometimes it was nothing at all. Beating Kaworu seemed to have just become his way of relieving stress.

That and drinking. He went through a bottle of hard liquor practically per week, if not more. On top of that, he was out late almost every other day with his drinking buddies. Kaworu and Liese never said anything, but they would both breathe a silent sigh of relief on these nights when they could have a few hours' reprieve. If Yuuto was home, he was drunk.

On this day in particular, the trigger had been a plate. The family had managed to share a tense supper together and Kaworu had been the first to finish, subsequently asking to be excused. Leaving the table, he had been carrying his dishes away when he had lost his grip on the plate. All three figures in the room froze at the sound of porcelain echoing through the kitchen. The other two's eyes shot to Yuuto.

It only took a moment. Liese rushed to the next room, escaping just as Yuuto struck. Just as had been the case with the bullies, Kaworu didn't struggle.

He just let himself shut down.

* * *

27/09/08 || Thursday || 12:07

"So, what do you say we have a little extra fun today?" Kaworu was behind the janitor's shed again, and again the three other's surrounded him. But something was different this time. His breath caught in his throat, not at Niklas' words, but at the boy pulling something out of his back pocket. "I found this is my brother's room last night," he turned it around in his fingers, letting it catch what little light there was. "Hold his arms down."

The small boy tried to make a break for it only to be grabbed by the two lackeys and shoved against the wall, arms held splayed out to the sides, wrists facing out.

Slowly, tauntingly, Niklas unfolded the switchblade. He placed the tip of it lightly against Kaworu's throat, twirling it as he spoke. "My brother told me that sometimes at his school there are these annoying losers who have to be taught their place. And do you know how to tell when those faggots have learned?" He leisurely dragged the blade down Kaworu's arm, leaving a thin red line behind it but not pressing hard enough to break skin. "They have rows," he lightly flicked the knife across his prey's wrist once, "and rows," twice, "of cuts," three times, "running down their arms." The places where the knife had run stung slightly, not bleeding, but puckering a bright red. "And now you're going to be one of those faggots. But the thing is, they made those cuts themselves." Suddenly, he took the weapon away from Kaworu's arm and shoved the handle into his right hand, forcing him to wrap his fingers around it, grasping it himself. "So, that's what you're going to do now."

Kaworu's breathing hitched and started coming out in short bursts.

With one of the boys still holding down his left arm and the other moving to restrain the rest of his body, Niklas forced him to bring his right hand towards his caught arm. The clip-point blade pressed harshly into his thin skin, releasing a bead of crimson blood that looked horrifyingly beautiful in contrast to his paleness.

Tears he couldn't stop started flowing from his eyes and his breathing became ragged, his mind hazy from the resulting oxygen deprivation. Images of cold metal rooms and figures clad in green shot through his thoughts.

And then Niklas forced Kaworu's hand downwards, slicing a deep red gash across his wrist, blood immediately flowing from it in thin streams.

Kaworu screamed.

A hand clapped hard over his mouth, silencing him.

The motion of the knife was repeated.

And again.

He was writhing from fear and pain, memories of the experiments that had been done to him at the facility flashing before his eyes in quick succession. He couldn't fight back. He couldn't straighten his thoughts enough to do that. He could barely even keep them organized enough to continue breathing.

And they were laughing. They found it funny.

He could feel the disgusting warmth of the blood spilling heavily from his veins, could practically smell the iron-like tang of it filling the air.

And then the feeling of the blade's handle fell from his hand and his right arm was held down again.

"Man, look at that! The little maggot actually bleeds red just like the rest of us! I was half expecting it to come out blue, with how weird he is." Something prodded at one of the cuts and Kaworu sucked in a sharp breath at the new wave of pain. "Hey, this feels cool! You guys should try too!" It was Niklas' finger. He was forcing his fingers into the cuts, opening them more, pulling them wider.

He wished he could just pass out from the pain, just fade into blackness and wake up when it was over. But he knew that wouldn't happen. It was one of the things he had overheard the doctor's discussing once. No matter what level of pain he went through, he had never passed out from it. He had never been able to escape it.

Oh, how he wished he could escape from it now.

But no, it just continued, rolling through his body as he choked out gasps and sobs.

And they just laughed.

Even when they finally let go of him and let him slump down to the bloody ground, finally releasing him from anything more than had already been done.

For now, at least.

* * *

27/09/08 || Thursday || 14:48

When he arrived home later in bloodstained clothes, hiding his damaged wrist behind his back, his parents said nothing.

* * *

30/09/08 || Sunday || 21:32

Sitting alone at the desk in his room a few days later, Kaworu stared down at his wrist with anger and pain flooding him.

The cuts horrified him. Not because of how deep they were or how much pain they had caused him, but because of how quickly they healed. He had come to learn by now that most people's injuries took longer than his. There had been numerous times when he'd seen other kids have to go to the nurse's office after getting hurt on the playground and a day, even a week later the bandages would still be there. And yet here he stood, just three days after the incident with the knife, and the deep cuts that had marred his skin had already healed into dark red ghosts of what they had previously been.

He didn't want them to heal. Not that quickly. A normal person wouldn't have healed that quickly, so why did he? Why couldn't he just be normal? If he was, then he wouldn't have to go through all of this. There would be no biannual sessions of him being a guinea pig to some crazy doctors. There would be no bullies shoving him against walls. There would be a dad who loved him and was kind to him.

Why couldn't he just be fucking _normal_?!

He slammed his fist down on the wood surface and the cup that he stored writing utensils in jumped, rattling as the pencils and pens shifted from the sudden movement. A loud, exasperated sigh escaped his lips and he laid his head down on the desk, enjoying how cold it was. And then he noticed that, beside the cup, there was a pair of scissors.

He just stared at them for a couple minutes, turning over the possibility in his mind.

Then, holding his breath as if afraid to scare away the very notion, he reached out and grabbed them. They weren't anything heavy duty, but they weren't the kind of scissors parents gave to their kids when they were worried they would accidentally cut themselves with them. The dual blades were about four inches in length with the handle a yellow that was stained with patches of glue, paint, and marker from various crafts they had been used for in the past.

Opening them up as wide as they would go, Kaworu grasped them with one handle and a blade in his hand. They weren't sharp enough to cut into his fingers like that, which he was silently thankful for. He held out his left wrist, long sleeve pushed up and out the way, and positioned the other blade where the thickest of the red marks was, pressing it down harshly.

Inhaling a deep breath before holding it, he pulled it across his wrist. Blood bubbled up from the thin cut he had made, superficial in comparison to what Niklas had done, but satisfying nonetheless. He repeated the action over the next red mark and then the next until all of them had been reopened.

If they were going to heal so fast, then he would just have to stop them.

This was something he was in control of. He couldn't stop the pain of the bullying or the abuse, but he could control this pain, at the very least. This was something he could control by his own free will.

* * *

Soon, this became like a ritual to him. Every night, after he had escaped Niklas and his thugs and after Yuuto had finished with him, he would find his way back to his desk in his room. It didn't take long for him to find something sharper to use; in the garage, he had found a couple box cutters and had snuck one which he now kept hidden in the drawer of the desk along with a box of tissues.

Within a month, the cuts had stopped being limited to the wrist, running all the way up his arm and anywhere else he decided to place them. It didn't matter if they were somewhere he couldn't cover with clothing. After all, as long as they weren't too deep, they would disappear almost completely by the next morning.

* * *

23/11/08 || Friday || 19:54

The first notes of Vivaldi's Winter could be heard throughout the house, its eerie cords repeating with the slightest of springs to its playing just before shifting into the faster parts. A small white haired child sat at the piano bench, though any who heard the music would assume the player was much older than he. In the almost two years since the arrival of the piano, he had often stolen to it as a form of entertainment, preferring it to most other forms of the same. As such, he had improved greatly from when he had first plunked his finger upon the keys, surprising his mother with his apparent lack of need for professional lessons.

His playing faltered for a moment, one finger missing its key, at the sound of the front door slamming closed and heavy footsteps crossing to the kitchen. A moment later, a slightly slurred "Cut it out with that fucking racket" came and he stopped, keeping his hands on the keys as he turned to see his father standing in the doorway with a bottle of vodka clasped in one hand, already half emptied despite having been full just yesterday. A chill ran up his spine.

"I told Liese we should just get rid of this stupid instrument, but would she listen to me? Of course not, the damned bitch," Yuuto said as he crossed to the piano, Kaworu sitting stalk still as he braced for what he suspected was next. "Huh? What are those?"

Kaworu's breathing stopped as he realized he had pulled his shirt sleeves up when he was playing so that they wouldn't get in the way. His wrists were visible. The cuts on his wrists were visible.

"Where the fuck did those come from?!" his father half yelled, his anger rising quickly, largely in part due to the amount of alcohol swimming in his veins. He paused for a moment, seeming to realize something, before grabbing the boy's thin wrist suddenly, constricting painfully. "Did you do this to yourself?!"

He said nothing, terror filling him so much that he couldn't even blink.

Without another word, Yuuto yanked Kaworu off the bench and pulled him by the arm until the two stood together in the kitchen. Once there, he pulled a French knife from the knife block on the counter and thrust it towards his son, offering the handle. "Do it. Just like you did the other ones."

"Huh?"

"Go on, cut yourself. I want to watch."

Kaworu was speechless, wide eyes moving back and forth from his father's face to the knife he was still holding out. He tried to take a step back, but Yuuto shot a hand forward and grabbed him by the collar.

"You're going to do it right now, do you hear me? And if you don't, I will take this knife and shove it into your chest. Now do it."

Having a blade in his chest wouldn't be anything new to him. Memories of that time the doctor had cut him open to take a look at his heart still seemed fresh in his mind, mixed with other similar ones. But none of those incidents had been done with intent to kill. That was new. And that was terrifying.

Yet still, he resisted.

And that was all it took.

"You fucking brat!" Changing his hold on the knife so that the handle was grasped firmly in his hand, Yuuto pulled Kaworu towards him while simultaneously driving the weapon forwards.

But it didn't hit skin.

Instead, it seemed to hit an invisible wall just an inch away from Kaworu's chest.

The same sense of power he had felt that night when Yuuto had tried to strangle him manifested once again, but this time, it was stronger.

Because he wasn't just scared this time.

He was _mad_.

Mad that his father of all people was the one doing this to him. Mad that, of all the people who had done horrible things to him, his father was supposed to be one of the people on his side, not the one threatening to kill him. Mad that he had to go through all of this. Mad that no one fucking did anything to help him. Mad that the only ones who ever had helped him were gone.

This anger, however, vanished the moment the knife froze, replaced instead by confusion.

The knife was pulled back and shot forward once more, and this time it really did hit skin. Kaworu fell to the floor as it was removed, pain seeming to flood his entire torso.

This time though, Yuuto was the one standing in confusion. The knife had hit something hard. Bone? He tried again, Kaworu letting out a small gasp of pain as he did so. Again he hit something hard. That wasn't supposed to be how it worked though, was it? Wasn't he using enough force and the right angle that he should be getting through? He had studied this, done research on the computers during his off time at work. He had planned this, waiting for his opportunity. He shouldn't be having any problems. So why?

"Yuuto?" Both of them froze at the sound of Liese's voice coming from just outside the kitchen door. "Are you hungry? It's a bit late but I could make you something if you-" Her voice cut off as the door opened, revealing to her what was happening. Her son on the floor covered in blood, her husband with knife in hand.

She screamed.

It took her barely a second later to back out of the doorway and run to the nearest phone, dialing the emergency number Seele had given her to use.

And that was all the time Yuuto needed to drop the knife and sprint out the front door, not even daring to look back.

* * *

23/11/08 || Friday || 20:23

Yuuto swore under his breath, ducking into an empty pedestrian underpass lit dimly by lights that turned on automatically once the sun went down. He hadn't expected Liese to walk in like that. She had been out when he had gotten home. He had checked. He thought he would have more time, that he could frame it to look like a burglar broke in or something.

Now what was he going to do? Liese would presumably call the police. He couldn't go home. He couldn't go to work. He didn't have any friends he trusted to hide him.

"Fucking hell…" Letting out a heavy sigh, he leaned against a pillar, sliding down until he was sitting on the dusty pavement.

"Yuuto Nagisa?"

He looked up, turning his gaze to the end of the tunnel where he heard someone call his name. A man in a suit stood there, but what attracted his attention more was the rows of armed gunmen standing behind him.

"What the-!" He sprang up and turned in the opposite direction, about to run when he noticed the other end was blocked by more of the same.

He was trapped.

* * *

**_A/N: _**_The happy is dead. I have killed it._

_This chapter was an odd sensation of being really fun to write and also feeling absolutely horrible for writing it._

_A couple things to mention: First off, I assume you noticed that little time stamps at the head of most scenes. I decided to add those in to help with showing the passage of time. They've been added to the previous chapters as well, so check those out it you're curious._  
_Second, I went through and rewrote my plot outline (which is part of the reason this chapter took so long), so it's waaay more organized and precise now, and I have been able to determine that this fic should be fifteen chapters in length, so we're a third of the way there._


	6. Chapter 6

_**Chapter Warnings:** Amputation, cannibalism, mentions of child abuse, mentions of self-harm, torture._

_Also make sure to keep a close eye on the time stamps for this chapter._

* * *

24/11/08 || Saturday || 07:05

Opening his eyes the next morning, Kaworu was greeted by surroundings much different to what he was used to waking to. Instead of colourful blankets, a paper-thin swathe of fabric that could barely be considered even a sheet was wrapped tightly around him as he tried to catch what little warmth he could with it. As he peaked at his surroundings, he found himself shivering from the eerily stark whiteness of it all; white walls with nothing to decorate them, white floors which were bare save for the cot he currently was situated on, and a white ceiling with a single dim fluorescent light humming in the center. There were no windows and the only other things noticeable in the small room were a cold metal door on the far side, assumedly locked, and a security camera situated so that it had view of both the cot and the door, a red light on it blinking steadily.

To be more precise, this wasn't what he was used to waking to _at home_. It was what he was greeted with every morning when he was at the facility.

His joints were stiff from disuse and the center of his chest itched slightly from already-formed scabbing. Inhaling deeply, he rolled onto his back and tried to stretch only to be reminded of the thick metal cuffs chaining his wrists together. Those were a new feature. He sat up slowly, expecting the stiffness that the sorry excuse of a bed always caused, and looked pointedly towards the camera.

Barely a minute later, a slot at the bottom of the door was opened and a tray of food pushed through. That was nothing unusual, but the contents of the tray were. Usually during his stays, Kaworu would be served meals of indecipherable content; pastes of varying colours which he was to eat without question using a thick plastic spoon provided. Today, however, it was half a dozen small cubes of a light coloured meat. There was no cutlery to be seen; it seemed he was expected to eat it with his hands.

In a few short steps, the small boy crossed the room and picked up one with his pointer finger and thumb, grimacing slightly at the juices that squelched out of it as he did so, and delicately place it in his mouth. Sweet. There was no seasoning on it as far as he could tell and it was only lightly cooked, but it was possibly the sweetest meat he'd ever tried. Slightly tough and stringy, but not enough to be unappetizing, and with a flavour that reminded him of the veal his mother had made once for Yuuto's birthday when Kaworu was still very young. It took barely a minute for the food to disappear from in front of him, licking his fingers in an attempt to preserve the taste a little longer, his mouth watering at the sensation.

There came a knock at the door moments before it swung open to reveal a man with salt and pepper hair: a doctor whom Kaworu had conversed with several times in the past. "Hello Tabris. Would you mind if I ask you about a few things?" He spoke politely with a hint of cheer to his voice, using the name that all the people here referred to Kaworu as for some unknown reason. Kaworu simply nodded, standing up from where he was crouched on the floor and backing up until he could once again perch himself on the cot. The doctor closed the door behind him, but continued standing. "Now, I hope you remember what I've told you before about how you're capable of doing some things that others can't and you're to avoid having people find this out, correct?"

Again Kaworu nodded, remembering the conversation from three sessions ago.

"Good. And have you used any of these powers around others?"

"…Once," he admitted in a small voice. "But dad was going to kill me! He had a knife and I was scared and-!" A dry sob caught in his throat, cutting him off for a moment. "…It didn't work anyway."

"What didn't work?"

"I dunno… It was kind of like an invisible shieldy-thing."

"And what did it feel like when you used it?"

"…Powerful? And warm. Kind of like there was a star in my chest getting bigger and bigger." The man pulled a notepad and pen out of his pants pocket and scrawled something down quickly, the paper out of view to Kaworu.

"Do you know why your father attacked you?"

No reply.

"Has he done this kind of thing before?"

A tiny nod, then a larger shake of the head. "He's never tried to kill me with a knife before."

"Has he done other things, then?"

Another nod. Kaworu drew his knees to his chest, wrapping his arms around them. "He hits me a lot…"

"Has he tried to kill you before?"

"…Once."

"How?"

Kaworu was silent. Instead of answering verbally, he made eye contact with the man, raising his hands and wrapping his fingers around his own neck.

He wrote something down again. "Alright. The last thing I want to ask you is which of those scars are the newest?"

Kaworu flinched. The outfit that had been given to him after the medical treatment he received last night was short sleeved, leaving his arms and all the scars that ran down them visible. Without speaking, he pointed to a small cluster of thick red lines just above his left elbow.

"How old are those?"

He thought for a moment. "Three days."

Once again the scratching of pen on paper could be heard.

"Thank you very much, Tabris. That's all I need to know from you right now. You'll be driven home by one of the staff later today, so you should be with your mother again before you fall asleep tonight." The man turned and started out the door, but Kaworu called once last thing before he closed it behind him.

"What about my dad?"

He paused, a small smile on his face. "You don't have to worry about him anymore."

* * *

24/11/08 || Saturday || 02:44

A blinding light greeted the man as he awoke to a bizarre scene, refracting off the whiteness and steel of the room as cameras blinked their tiny red lights at him, watching him from varying angles and degrees. His back was cold, pressed against the table centered within as his arms and legs were splayed out around him, held down tightly by thick metal straps that bit into his flesh. Although the biggest restraints were wrapped around his chest, neck, and just above the hips, the smaller ones weren't on his wrists and ankles as would be the usual; they were halfway between each joint on the limbs with the feet and hands specifically being held down by specialized clasps.

Adrenaline coursed through him on account of his fear, but it wasn't the mere act of his naked body being held down and watched so intently that frightened him. Hovering in groups of three over each of his limbs were wide, thick slabs of metal extending from the ceiling, their bottom edges sharpened into blades. They were positioned just so so that, if lowered, they would come into contact with his joints. Shoulders and hips, elbows and knees, wrists and ankles.

And, so slowly that it was barely noticeable, the blades were falling.

"I am going to ask you a series of questions," a sudden calm, deep voice said, originating from tiny speakers beside each of his ears which he hadn't noticed before. The sensation was unnerving, feeling as though the speaker was right beside him, whispering to him. "You are to answer precisely and honestly in a clear voice. We'll start things off simply. What is your name?"

He swallowed, grimacing slightly at the dryness of his throat, before responding, "Yuuto Nagisa."

"What is your birthdate?"

"April 22, 1969."

"That would make you thirty-nine years old. Is this correct?"

"Yes."

"What are your parents' names and ages?"

"Why?"

"Please answer the question."

Yuuto felt his muscles tense as he realized that, with the voice's last sentence, the speed of the blades lowering had increased. At present, they were positioned barely a half a foot above him, close enough that he could see their sharpness. "Ryousuke Nagisa, 67, and Akari Nagisa, 61."

The blades slowed again.

"And their current city of residence?"

"Nikko, Japan."

"Do you have any siblings?"

"No."

"Who are you currently living with?"

He hesitated, memories of the events leading up to his kidnapping running through his mind. The blades sped up. "M-My wife and son!"

"What are their names and ages?"

"Liese Nagisa, 36, and Kaworu Nagisa, 8."

"What are the circumstances of your son's birth?"

So, as he had suspected, this was most likely an operative of Seele whom he was talking to. They were testing how much he knew.

The blades were a quarter of a foot from his skin now, and sweat beaded on his forehead as he watched the ones above his right arm.

He told them everything Liese has told him, from her stillbirth to Kaworu being something called an Angel.

The blades were barely an inch away by the time he finished. His breath started coming out in short burst.

"Are you at all aware of what an Angel is?"

"No! Please, just stop the blades! I'll answer any question you want!" he pleaded, his voice saturated with panic.

They didn't. Much the opposite, they sped up once again. As the cold metal made contact with his skin, Yuuto changed his answer. "I know he has some sort of powers or something!" he burst out as fast as he could, letting out a shaking sigh as the offending weapons slowed again, not yet expelling enough pressure to break skin.

"Elaborate."

"He can float and glow and manipulate electricity! A-and produce some kind of weak force field! He tried to use it last night!"

"Tried?"

"It disappeared! It stopped the knife once, but then it disappeared!"

"Why?"

"I don't know!"

"Come now," the voice taunted, "even the girl had more to say by this point."

"That's all I know, I swear!" He felt the skin on his limbs give under the pressure and the twelve points on his body stung harshly, causing him to wince. Blood began to drip from the wounds, pooling sickeningly on the table.

The voice suddenly grew forceful. "Why did you try to kill Tabris?"

"Tabr-? AGH!" The blades sped once more and a cry of pain escaped his lips. There was something that resembled a cracking sound coming from his arms, and the bones in his knees felt as though they were scraping together. Yuuto tried to clear his head without much success. Did they mean Kaworu? "Because he's a monster!" he cried. "I'm afraid of him! He's going to kill me some day! He's going to-! AGHHHH!"

"I don't think we can get any more from him, sir. It'll work better to ask the subject." There was a second more feminine voice, muted and muffled as if speaking from a distance.

The first voice sighed, muttering a little ways away from the microphone, "At least we have everything we need. His body will be good for that experiment Dr. Ehrlichmann mentioned earlier."

The blades stopped, lodged about halfway between each limb, and Yuuto panted heavily with relief. Was it over? Were they going to let him go?

And then, still digging into his joints, they one by one turned a fast ninety degrees. First the right leg, moving from the hip downwards, then the left leg, and then the left arm, and the finally the right. As each did so, the sound of the bones snapping and flesh ripping filled the room, accompanied by his own screams as the world swam with red. Blood flew in bursts from severed and torn arteries and the open wounds glistened in the bright light being reflected off the cruel metal.

There was a muffled laugh from the speakers.

Once the last one had finished its rotation, the metal slabs plunged down in unison.

Blinding pain was the last thing Yuuto knew.

* * *

24/11/08 || Saturday || 07:26

"Did you see how fast he ate it? I doubt he even suspected what it was."

"That's good though. It means we'll be able to use it as a factor in future experiments without any reluctance from him. Make sure you keep the rest deep frozen with the other two. We don't want it going bad before me get the chance to use it."

* * *

24/11/08 || Saturday || 18:51

The ride home seemed even longer than usual, spent in silence as red eyes half paid attention to the scenery that flowed passed the car. In the time that passed, Kaworu had nothing to stop his mind from wandering to the topic of what was awaiting him back in his usual life. He wondered if anyone had heard of what happened. How would Niklas react to finding out that his target had almost been killed? Would he go easier on him or would he feel like had competition to beat? Would things get better or would they only continue to worsen?

Staring out that heavily tinted window that marred even the sun's brightness, he found himself wondering idly if it wouldn't have been better if Yuuto had succeeded the previous night.

But Yuuto was gone. The doctor had said he wouldn't have to worry about him anymore. Kaworu and Liese could be happy now. They didn't have to be afraid at home anymore. His mom could love him again.

Holding this thought close to his heart, excitement started to stir in him as he began to recognize his surroundings as his neighbourhood.

As soon as the car parked, he was jiggling the locked door handle, waiting impatiently for the driver to let him out, and the moment he was finally freed, he was racing to the front door of his house. He pressed down the doorbell again and again, hearing the muffled noises of it ringing inside.

But when Liese opened the door, her expression held no warmth and Kaworu's own was changed from hopeful to of one hurt and confusion. She nodded shortly to the driver as thanks, then reached down and grabbed the child's wrist tightly, pulling him in and swiftly closing the door behind them.

And then she was gone, disappearing into her bedroom with no hint that she planned to re-emerge any time soon.

Kaworu was alone again.

* * *

_**A/N: **__Also, fun little tidbit: One of the meanings of Katie's full name, Katharina, is torture. Did you pay attention to what the voice said to Yuuto?_


End file.
